


if you want a bit of love put your head on my shoulder

by orphan_account



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: F/M, but it's mostly beth, vaguely concerned jerry will put some ppl off this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 10:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5160533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth and Jerry don't really date.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you want a bit of love put your head on my shoulder

 

She sits on the floor of girls bathroom, she can’t do this at home, she just _can’t_.

So, she’s sitting on the floor of the girl’s bathroom during third period with a pregnancy test clutched in her hand. It’s unopened, because she hasn’t thought this through. Because, what is she going to do if it’s positive? Walk into English, slap the urine-covered stick on Jerry’s desk, and say, “fuck you”? 

She bites the inside of her cheek and looks at the happy, smiling woman on the packaging. She snorts, because pregnancy didn’t do her mother any favors in the long run and it’s not like it would for her either. 

_God_ , she wants to cry, _fuck Jerry._

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

(She meets Jerry in middle school. When he tucked his shirts into his corduroys and his mom still parted and gelled his hair for him. They’re paired up for the science fair and he looks thrilled as he walks over to her. 

He likes her and she kind of likes the feeling.)

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

When everything falls apart, she’s fourteen. She goes to school the next day, and she sits at her desk, and she eats lunch with her friends. And during sixth period, Jerry corners her in the library and whispers:

“Are you feeling okay?” 

She feels like screaming at him, because can’t he see that nothing is “okay”? That everything has gone to hell and she’s left with all these fucking pieces and a goddamn useless mother who can’t be bothered to try and fix it. She feels like ripping his fucking head off, because she can’t give a shit anymore. 

But she doesn’t. She doesn’t say anything and just shrugs him off.

A week later, when everyone knows and people stare at her in the hallways, she kisses Jerry for the first time. She’s on his bed, staring at his ceiling (at those stupid stuck on stars that he thinks are so fucking cool) and he comes over to her. 

“You know,” he says, “You can, uh, like, talk to me about… stuff.” 

She stares at his stars. 

“I mean, like, if you wanted to, I just—” he pauses, and he’s looking anywhere but at her and starting to turn red, “—Beth, I care about you, and I want to be there for you. And your dad, well that just sucks and—“ 

And she kisses him, because she doesn’t want to talk to him. 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

She tells her mom first. Picks at the couch cushion and bites the inside of her cheek when she’s finished. She’d thought about not saying anything. They aren’t close, she’s going to get an abortion anyway, but— but she stares at one of the pictures hanging in the hall, the one where she’s mostly a baby and has her chubby arms wrapped around her mother’s neck. She stops and stares at that picture and start to cry.

So, she tells her mom first, before she even thinks about telling Jerry. And when she’s finished, there’s a long pause. 

Her mother comes to sit down next to her. She lifts a hand to her cheek and says, “Why is life so hard for you? I didn’t want it that way, Beth, I didn’t want this for you.” 

“I know, Mom.” 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

(Rick doesn’t seem to notice him.

“Who’s this?” he asks, every time Jerry comes over after school.

“It’s Jerry, Dad,” she says.

“Oh-oh right, Gary,” he’ll say, and reach into the fridge.

And Rick never remembers Jerry, but he glares at him when he doesn’t know she’s looking.)

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

She and Jerry don’t really date. She goes out with lots of boys, boys who are eager to know if the rumors about her are true (most of them are) and want to see how far they can get. Boys who leave her when their finished. 

But not Jerry. She kisses him when she’s in-between boys, she lays on his bed and cries when everything is just too much, and even though she hates it, she watches _Friends_ on his couch just because it’s his favorite show. 

He tells her he loves her when she’s sixteen. It’s not a drunken confession or a desperate now-or-never; it’s a sigh when she leans in to kiss him. 

“I love you,” he sighs, and she pulls back. 

She used to think Rick loved her mother. Used to think he loved her even at the end, when everything had gone to shit. And then he left, he left and she realized that love wasn’t something you just got to have; you had to be worthy of it too. And she wasn’t. 

She still isn’t. 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

It’s three days after the appointment at the clinic and she’s sitting on the floor in her bedroom. She hasn’t spoken to Jerry since then, since their fight on the side of the road. She doesn’t know what to say. He wants to marry her and have this baby and she can’t fucking deal with that right now. 

She has plans and they don’t include him. She realizes this and feels sick, because she loves Jerry. 

She needs Jerry because he’s an idiot who loves her. 

An idiot who loves his baby even though he’s only seventeen and should be thinking about who he’s going to fuck when he’s through with her. She’s given him so many outs (been looking for so many outs for herself), that she’s always surprised when he’s there waiting for her at the end of it all. 

And she’s so used to people leaving, she wants this, wants someone who will stay for her. She picks up her phone and bites the inside of her cheek before dialing.

“Jerry,” she says, gripping the line so tight her knuckles are white.

“B-Beth!” he gasps on the other end. 

“Let’s do this.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I like the idea of Jerry and Beth in high school, so I just kind of rolled with it.  
> Whenever I write Beth, I get about 100 more ideas for more Beth fic so watch out guys.


End file.
